Tag Archives: wine

I’ve been trying SO hard to plan less on weekends, particularly less OVERplanning on weekends and leaving things more loose.

This is hard for me, because I love summer, and love to make plans, to enjoy the outdoors, cookouts, beach, pool, lake, you name it, I wanna do it.

But this weekend, I did my best to NOT plan much else except one thing: Restaurant Week in Boston and a night at the Liberty Hotel (also? I love scoring hot deals at hotels like this one!!). And what unfolded was just the most incredible, perfect weekend. One that made me realize that I really need to stick to this rule of thumb: Simplify. Plan one thing, leave the rest open.

Pre-dinner drinks at the Liberty with my sherpa ❤Ready for our night out, one that would turn epic, quite quickly 😉Theme of the night? “That third bottle of champagne…was it *really* necessary?”Sisters having *far* too much fun enjoying aforementioned champagne, and a late night, 12:30 am! #whoareweFast forward to Saturday, waking up with oh, a titch of a hangover (that lasted me almost all day, damn!), and finally working up the nerve to have a glass of wine (#hairofthedog!) after an afternoon shopping on Newbury, just flitting around, no schedule. The best!Impromptu trip to the beach, you say? Sure, why not! Nothing else planned! And a perfect top 10 beach day, and only my second (!) trip to the beach this year. Perfection.…capped with a surprise run-in with my sister Jen, my mom (Isabel’s ‘mimi!’ She is absolutely in LOVE with my mom these days, love!) at the beach, playing, watching her ‘clean’ up the beach of seaweed (she loves to clean, just like her aunties!)

The weekend concluded with dinner with M’s parents, last minute, again, unplanned. We finished the night on the couch, tv in the background, just being. Utterly perfect. And completely unplanned, save for Friday night, with the rest falling into place as the weekend went on. And ya know what? It felt like the longest weekend in awhile…funny how that happens, isn’t it? I’ll close with M’s response to my saying just that, on Sunday morning (over oatmeal on the patio! yummy!).

Like this:

As I trot off to California for the next four days, I will sear into memory a blissful weekend that I truly believe was even MORE blissful because of shifting my focus and not going into this trip with any sort of ‘dread’ (except for the goodbye to M, which is always, always so hard), but with perspective that it’ll be a fantastic experience, filled with growth.

Without further ado…

Another ‘happy miles’ run with M, even if a bee did chase me and I ran like the wind 😉got my sushi fix on Friday night, with a glass of wine on the patioImpromptu trip to the lake on Saturday…check out that glisten.got to dip my toes into the lake, not as chilly as I thought, either 😉a sister cookout at Jess and Scott’s, never complete without a photo bomb 😉I ❤ my sisters!

Complete with dinner on the deck and a crisp rose, and the weekend rounds out to a beautiful close…

And on a weekend that has marked the passing of my Nonna (May 20, 2009), I couldn’t help but think that this picture perfect weekend is her, smiling down, happy to see the happiness and love in my life, and in my sister’s lives too. I hugged my niece a little tighter, with her namesake (Isabel) and just smiled, my heart happy.

She climbed right up into my lap…and though it was just briefly, it’s captured.

I’ve done a few of these ‘things I’m loving’ Friday posts and figured since I have a little collection of favorite things in my brain at present, I’d share them with ya. I always find these types of posts to give a great tidbit or two when I read others who have written similarly-themed posts! TGIF friends!!!!

Sparkling water in a wine glass. Seriously, try it. It just tastes fancy. and tricks my eye into thinking it’s *really* wine on days I am not drinking actual wine (for a girl that talks a lot about wine, I swear I really only have it on weekends and one night during the week!)

Sleeping with the windows open and birds chirping. BEST way to wake up. Ever.

New sneakers!! Scored a great pair of Saucony ProGrid Ride 4s last night at a local running store (got fitted for high arches, helps I do believe!). Which leads me to the next favorite thing…

an AWESOME run with my sis today!! We did 7 miles and I haven’t done 7 in almost a month, so while I was a little nervous at first (why, no idea, it’s my sister for goodness sakes!), we had a pretty near-perfect run and the sneakers felt great! (still riding a runner high as we speak)

Skinny cow ice cream…and even better? Banana ‘mock’ ice cream. My friend Steph made this concoction: frozen banana, couple of chocolate chips, tsp of peanut butter, blend together, voila! SO GOOD! I did half of that with half cup of vanilla ice cream last night and it was utter perfection.

Friends that ‘get’ me. I feel surrounded by those that care about me and that I care about back, both ‘IRL’ and virtually. Feeling supported and liked is such a great feeling to give and reciprocate, isn’t it? (had to end with one sappy one…hehe).

See? awesome #rundate pic! I'm on the right, FYI (lol)

On that note, I am off to finish off this workday strong and enjoy a fun-filled weekend, rounded out by teaching at barre n9ne…what could be better than that? Cheers!

…even though it was packed to the gills, it wasn’t overscheduled. This makes all the difference, I do believe.

…I enjoyed a leisurely 3+ hours over sushi and wine with some lovelies. We talked, we laughed, we ate some best sushi ever. The end.

…I spent a log-less Saturday as a ‘test run’ and it went swimmingly. All about balance and good choices. Maybe I can do this after all.

…I woke up at a ‘leisurely’ 8 am both Saturday and Sunday. Fully rested.

…I had sort of a craptastic run on Saturday. But I powered through and am not overthinking it. There’s always this week’s runs, right?

…Spent Saturday evening with M’s parents for dinner. And discussed visiting the Azores in Portugal together sometime in the next few years. Yes, please.

…Enjoyed a leisurely Sunday with my grandparents in Maine, where we ate corned beef and cabbage (um, yum! haven’t had that in eons!) and enjoyed every minute of our time together (I especially enjoyed the time on the deck with Gram, as she remarked ‘so when are you two getting married? He’s a good man.” (*swoon*).

…it felt like June in March. At 79 degrees on Sunday, we had every window open, took a walk in tank top and shorts and ate dinner (grilled shrimp salad and a glass of rose!) on the deck. Bliss.

…I caught a glimpse of my legs in my lulu run shorts for said walk, and actually really liked what I saw.

…looking forward to almost a full week of incredibly unseasonable temperatures for walks, runs, and perhaps a skinny cow ice cream or two.

It’s okay if the weekend is over because it’s been chock full but not overscheduled. And that makes all the difference in the world.

What makes it okay that the weekend is over for you? #itsthelittlethings

NOTE: if you cannot comment on my post, I understand from WordPress that you must create a WordPress login in order to comment. It’s ass-backward if you ask me, commenting should be OPEN, but I digress. If it’s not working for you and you want to comment, that’s the only thing I’ve heard that works. Sorry, friends!

Ever have one of those weekends that is a blank slate? Completely unplanned and yet, everything is just so perfect? This is one of those weekends. Couldn’t have happened at a better time…the day before my first work trip of 2012.

So, I capture it here, an (almost) wordless weekend (in pictures).

Friday night peace...glass of wine, fire going, kitty bellies in the air 😉A near-perfect 7 mile run with M on Saturday. 50 degree weather and 60 by mid-day. Bliss.A dinner of simplicity - homemade Greek salads with shrimp, and cheese and olives for an app......followed by one of our stockpiled wine country picks (Dry Creek Vineyards Meritage. De-lish)....Random Target purchase of the day - the Game of LIFE! This was seriously a blast to play...another game on tap for this evening 😉Sunday reading as M watches football...more bliss...One sleepy kitty by my head (literally, she is laying right by my head as I read)Another sleepy kitty curled up on the bed...

...and two happily content people, sapping every minute out of this weekend together ❤

‘Don’t do tomorrow what you can do today…” words I read in my book today and one of my favorite quotes.